An Odd Relationship
by Suk-fong
Summary: Maybe I have a Dragon Fetish.'


When the monster comes at her, she creams for her brother. He doesn't come until she is already sliced, and barely holding on.

She is conscious enough to see her brother, with his sword cut the monster to bits. She is aware that she is being held against someone's strong chest and being rushed at speeds unimaginable, through the air.

It is when she is set on the hospital bed, she slips.

The chain she didn't know of breaks as she walks towards her crying sister. She stops and looks at her brother and father. She notices the girl, who lives in their house is there, and a white haired boy, and a busty strawberry blonde she has never seen before.

Her father starts explaining where she will go, and her brother cuts in. Her sister holds her hand.

'Go to the Academy.' The white haired boy says. His voice is deep, contrasting with his childlike appearance.

She ignores him and turns to her family.

'Find me.' she says with a lopsided grin.

*

When she wakes up, she only knows her name. The rest of her is gone. She knows the basics, this is a hand, this is hair, and these are people. But who she is, is lost.

It only takes her a few days before she finds people, to be the people she can't remember. They are lost souls as well, and they become a family. An argumentative and loud family that fights, and steals, and looks like it will fall apart at any second, but doesn't.

She introduces a ball to them, and makes up a game. There are teams that try to put the ball between the other team's posts, without their hands. She becomes the best at it.

She learns that whatever she was, she was fast, and no one can beat her at a race. And she is short; she hasn't past five foot two inches, in the past four hundred days. She also knows there is someone who she writes to. Everyday she writes her feelings, and what she has done in letters, because she can feel someone do it for her.

And she dreams. Every night of dragons, and balls and people whose names and faces she cannot remember, but knows she loves them, and they are important to her.

Today, she wakes up before the family she has made wakes up. She takes all four hundred letters and walks away.

*

She walks and she walks, and she walks. She leaves the sixty eighth district and walks. She doesn't know where she is going. But in between the dragons, and the balls and the people she knows, but doesn't, she heard a voice telling her to go. So she does. She walks until she is tired. And walks more.

*

It is from a busty strawberry blonde who yells her name that she learns more about herself. The blonde who talks fast, and seems drunk tells her everyone has been looking for her.

The blonde leads her inside the promise land for her, and takes her to her division. She doesn't sit and she doesn't miss the scowl fall off the white haired man sitting at the desk, at the sight of her. She ignores the greeting between superior and subordinate, and the sending of a butterfly. But when she is asked what she remembers, she describes.

'A wild loud goat chin whose fighting an angry grumpy boy and a smiling girl.'

She is told the names of father, her brother and her twin sister.

'Yazu.' She can't keep the warm smile off her face. She tells them of the balls and the games, and she is told it is soccer.

'What about dragons? Do I have a connection to dragons?' She does not miss the exchange between the white haired man, and the strawberry blonde.

*

When her brother comes, with the girl who she recognizes, she tries his name and it comes out easily. Her brother smiles and musses up her hair in a brotherly gesture. The strawberry blonde and the girl all smile. Her brother hands her five hundred and seventy-three letters, one for each day she had been dead from her sister. She gives five hundred and seventy-three letters back.

'What about dragons?' She asks.

Her brother grins, 'I didn't forget Yuffie!' He hands her a stuffed purple plush dragon. She hugs the dragon. She doesn't miss the tension leave the white haired man's shoulders.

'I want to see Yazu.' She tells him. He tells her only Soul Reapers are allowed into the world of the Living, and only Seated Officers at that.

She says she'll be there in less than three years.

The white haired man says, 'It takes three years to graduate from the Academy.'

*

She graduates in a year and a half. She's late to her plan. She has an excuse though. Her studying was cut short by dreams of a White Dragon. She wonders if Yuffie is lonely.

She chooses the eleventh squad because if you defeat the one in front of you, you get their position. It takes her another year and a half to become fourth seat.

*

After more than four years, she hugs her sister again. She marvels at how different they look. Her sister grown up at nineteen, all glamorous, and she stuck in puberty at fifteen.

They go out of town, because she cannot be seen. All her friends know she is dead.

It is three towns over, where she sees a white stuffed plush dragon. She buys it immediately and calls it Yuki.

*

It is the third night in the real world that she cannot sleep. The dreams of the White Dragon keep haunting her. She's getting annoyed now, and she escapes the bedroom she shares with her sister, and goes walking.

She ends up at the soccer field, where many memories take place, and where she died.

The white haired man, who she swore was much, much shorter, is there too. She realizes he never told her his name.

'Hey.' She says, and nods slightly. She has never been one to pay attention to ranks. All she does is look ahead, and now she is at the position she wants, she looks ahead no more. But she knows the white coat means a Captain. 'Can't sleep either?' He doesn't answer her as she kicks a worn soccer ball around the field. 'Or on patrol?' He watches her dribble the ball to the goal. 'She shouts, she scores!' She laughs and looks at him, 'Play with me if you're just going to stand there.'

He joins in hesitant at first.

*

It is the seventh night dreams of a White Snowy Dragon have waken her, and the fourth night she has gone to play soccer with the white haired captain. An odd friendship has formed between them, one that can only be formed by insomniacs she jokes.

'I don't know why all my dreams are all snowy and cold.' She tells him, when they are resting on bleachers. 'I know it's not my Soul Cutter. I dreamt of earthquakes for two years. That was a change.' She pauses, and waits for him to reflect his thoughts. He has no answer, nor does he want to share his thoughts. 'I dunno…maybe I have a dragon fetish.' She doesn't know what to say of her companion's expression

*

When she returns to her office after her vacation she is overwhelmed at how much paperwork there is for her to do. Apparently every other seated officer is illiterate. It takes her hours, without eating to fill out every form. It's then when she finds her Captain's little note that all the paper work must be given to the Captain of the Tenth squad, before nightfall.

She laughs in her head at what her brother said about the captain of the tenth,

'He's a grumpy bastard. Real short bastard,-lives on paperwork. He must murder so many trees', as she arrives at the Tenth's Captain's office.

'Hey.' She smiles widely, when she realizes the Captain of the Tenth is her insomniac friend, 'Sleeping better?' He doesn't dignify the question with an answer. Rudeness that would bother her, and she would call him on it later; however, her mind is telling her that her brother is wrong. The Captain of the Tenth isn't short , he is sitting so she cannot be completely sure, but he seems to be taller than her brother.

'I bring paperwork.' She puts pounds and pounds of files on his desk. She hears him sigh. 'What? You just murdered a few more trees with your paperwork fetish.'

She can't help but laugh at his expression

*

It has become a weekly ritual. She does the paper work, and brings it to him to do his official paper work job, and then she takes the paper to her Captain.

He notes and tells her she looks tired as she lazes on the chair in his office.

'Can't sleep. Stupid dragons. What did I do to them?' She asks. It's late, and the paper work has to be done for today or yesterday as she realizes it has been over three hours since it's due, and he isn't halfway done.

There were a lot of fights this week. She closes her eyes, to go over the list.

Three hours later, he is waking her up. All the paper work is done.

She realizes she has slept three hours with no dragons. She dreamt of burning all the trees, so there was no paper work. But no dragons in sight.

'Do you want to get breakfast? My treat, it's a thank you.' She grins lopsidedly.

'I just did my job.'

'It's a thank you.' She tells him. He smiles slightly, barely, and comes.

*

They see each other a bit more frequently. The third seat and Vice Captain are on a mission leaving her to relay information, because god knows, her Captain is useless with directions.

He asks her how her sleep is. She tells him there are still dragons.

*

It takes her four more years to realize she doesn't dream of dragons, when she falls asleep in his office, while she waits for paper work. She hasn't told him this. But her sister knows every detail.

'It's not that I don't like dragons. Of all imaginary animals, they're the best. I just…for a change, no dragons. It's just…yeah.'

*

The first night she has a complete and total restful sleep, she wakes up in his quarters. Her clothing is intact, and so is his. There is a pillow wall between the,

She realizes she has stolen every blanket.

Fragments of last night's memory piece together. They both were a bit tipsy, but they were thinking, mostly straight. She told him, that when she falls asleep in his office, she doesn't dream of dragons. She joked about moving into his office. He said his bed is more comfortable. She followed him, trusting him. There is no romantic intention, in their odd relationship.

For the first time in ten years she has had a peaceful sleep.

When he wakes up, he finds the room filled with her sent, and a note with two words.

*

The next night, in her own room, she dreams of the white snowy ice dragon again. An annoyance, but she has become accustom to them.

However unlike every other dream, the dragon is in battle with a monster. She wakes up screaming.

*

The nightmares continue for weeks. Every seated officer in the division knows, and have all offer remedies that have no effect.

Each nightmare is worse than the one before. The white ice dragon is loosing his fight, and she doesn't know why.

It is when the dragon dies, and she wakes up crying, she leaves.

She runs into his quarters, and wakes him up. He stops any complaints, and moves over.

She sleeps huddled against him.

*

A general decision by her Captain and him moves her into his quarters permanently. She has no nightmares, sleeping there.

Again, there is no romantic intention. The Captains and Vice Captains understand.

Neither takes notice of the whispers of the unseated foot soldiers.

Over the months and years, they have come to an unspoken agreement in their odd relationship. Neither will fall for the other. And neither will fall for anyone else.

*

It is five years after she has moved in, when she see his Bankai.

They have sparred of course, and played soccer with paperwork as goals. They have raced through the Districts to see who is fastest. And after twenty years of knowing him better than anyone, she finally sees his Bankai.

Not that she hasn't heard of his sword, and he hasn't heard of hers.

She stares into the Heavens, her battle momentarily forgotten as the Ice Dragon takes the sky.

She watches him fight, and she understands why no dreams of dragons happen when she lies next to him.

When the battle is over, and he lands next to her, and looks at her, she knows he understands as well.

She takes her brother, and father, her Captain and her comrades by surprise when she launches herself on him, sobbing.

He takes his subordinates by surprise as he cradles in his arms.

Her sister smiles widely. She knew all along. Her brother sputters how she said there was nothing romantic happening between them.

They both ignore the surprise. To them this is just another bit of their odd relationship.


End file.
